deterministic

It seems to happen a lot with Lisp enthusiasts for some reason, usually without any evidence to back it up.

It always makes me laugh because the real world runs on C/C++, not Lisp. So perhaps by “elite” they mean something other than being successful in the real world? Maybe they think they “get it” while everyone else doesn’t, which somehow makes them “elite”? A bit like conspiracy theorists who think they’re among the few smart enough to know the “truth.” Not sure.

> The United States has the best engineers because it pays the best

Nope. There are many counter examples of companies being world leading without paying world leading salaries to their engineers.

It's a big mistake to believe that the only thing all engineers care about is $. Yes it is true for some engineers but not for all.

It is correct that a lot of talented Europeans get educated in Europe and then immigrate to the US starting successful companies. Without those Europeans, there would be a lot fewer successful US companies.

Nope. Ex-game developer here. There are plenty of situations where choosing a single difficulty level will make a game impossible for some players and too easy for others.

I worked on a commercial game where the only solution was to subtly adjust the difficulty to keep the experience enjoyable for everyone. The trick is to do it in a way that players don't notice.

Your premise is not matching my experience at all.

I know Haskell but use C++ as my daily tool. And I do care deeply about code quality because I don't want to spend most of my time fixing bugs.

Thanks! What a great read.

Your mobile phone runs on a CPU architecture designed in Europe (ARM), manufactured by a machine that only a European company can make (ASML), using a number of protocols invented in Europe (Bluetooth for example), using protocols invented in Europe to browse the internet (HTML/HTTP), based on a very long history of computer science ideas and programming languages invented in Europe or by Europeans.

Give credit where credit is do.

Having said that, I do agree that US companies tend to be better at commercializing new ideas than European ones.

> has the best engineers in the world

Really? What evidence do you have for that? Are you saying that companies like Airbus, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, ASML, Leonardo, Rolls-Royce, Dassault Aviation, Toyota, Bosch, Komatsu, Siemens, ABB, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Alstom, Vestas, Samsung, Sony, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Shipbuilding etc. don't have world class engineers?

An excellent read. However, this part is wrong:

> Those decades spent fighting memory bugs in C or C++, with the scars to prove it, are worthless.

The world runs on C and C++, with billions of lines of code. That code isn't going away. And with AI, maintaining, debugging, and updating it is becoming much easier.

The #1 benefit of AI in my experience is improving product quality not development speed.

Claude Code is amazing at finding subtle bugs and improving the performance of the code. Something that directly benefit people using the product. Love it.

If that kind of comment makes you feel better about yourself that's fine by me :)

I completely agree. There's no guarantee that researchers won't still be needed despite AI.

I really don't get the AI hatred. I have seen impressive work created with AI and really shitty work created with AI.

The problem is not AI. The problem is the person using the AI.

Wow, those are some very strong claims, yet you haven't provided any evidence or argument to support them.

If I understand you correctly, you're arguing that anyone who disagrees with you is:

1. An AI/corporate fascist. 2. Self-deluded. 3. Dependent on LLMs.

Could you now provide what you yourself called a "reasonable argument or proof" that these claims are actually true?

Not my experience at all. I taught myself assembly language when I was 11 just for fun, and I'm still programming as a hobby more than 40 years later, even though I also do it professionally.

And I love using LLMs. They take care of all the boring boilerplate, letting me focus on the parts I actually enjoy.

Not my experience at all. I love using LLM's when hobby programming!

But then again I don't program as a hobby to impress others online. Maybe that's the difference?

And maybe somebody will create something better than LEAN. That has nothing to do with the original argument.

> These days most of the sensible people have moved from C++ to Rust

Wrong. There are more than 16 million C++ developers worldwide.

Show me a programming language that doesn't result in developers "making blunders over and over again" when developing the kind of very large software C/C++ is used for.

> ... don't value correctness or security enough

Wrong. It is the market that doesn't value correctness or security enough.

We have the tools (formal verification) to create bug free software (see seL4 and CompCert for example). However customers are not willing to pay for the extra cost needed.

> C and C++ are simply not fit for purpose when large scale software projects are concerned

The world runs successfully on C and C++. Ignoring that fact and claiming that Rust will magically remove all bugs is BS^2.

That's a bad analogy. LEAN is a leading bleeding edge proof verification tool.

People do use formal methods. Type checking is a simple form of formal methods.

Some languages have type systems that are advanced enough to prove code correct (LEAN/Agda/...)

Other examples are seL4 (a proven correct micro kernel used on millions of devices), CompCert (a proven correct C compiler used by Airbus), TLA+ used by AWS etc. There are many more examples.

So yes it is not main stream but it is being used where it counts.

No programming language will ever be perfect. But it's still better for everyone to focus on improving one language than to recreate the same ideas across dozens of different languages, like a Tower of Babel of duplicated effort.

The mouse trail is really annoying! Not a good example of how to do UI.

Not true. seL4 (for example) is an example of a real time kernel proven correct end-to-end and used on millions of devices.

Another example is CompCert (a proven correct C compiler used by Airbus and others for real production software).

> Now it all can be developed in just 5 mins

Please go ahead and post a YouTube video showing us all how to do it.

> If you're using Lisp, then sure.

So are you saying Lisp somehow makes software flexible enough to handle any requirement change, no matter how badly it's written?

Really?

Lisp doesn't have any unique feature that makes this possible. Macros, meta programming, and single type systems all exist in other languages too.

> If you're using C++, then chances are you're going to have to heavily overengineer the thing to cover all possible requirement changes.

I disagree. My experience has been the opposite.

I maintain a large C++ codebase used by companies around the world. I spend almost all my time adding features and almost none fixing production bugs. The code is flexible because it's well designed and well tested.

The language isn't what's important. Good design and good testing make software flexible. Poor design doesn't, no matter what language you use.

So your argument is that no solution could satisfy your new requirement, not even if Facebook rewrote the entire system from scratch.

If that's the case, then your example doesn't really address what we're discussing: whether software can be designed to remain flexible under realistic requirement changes.

A stronger argument would be to give an example of a realistic requirement change that would force all possible software architecture to be rewritten from scratch. Do you have an example like that?

That's a straw man argument. Your new requirement is physically impossible. No software team can break the laws of physics.

So the real question is what exactly do you mean by "immediately"? There are many answers with different pros/cons and cost. And I bet the solution won't impact 99% of the software Facebook has already written.